WA man falls victim to international investment and 'money wash' scam

A West Australian man says he is devastated after losing $3 million in an online 'money wash' scam.

Bryan, a 56-year-old mine worker from the South West town of Boyanup, who does not want his surname revealed, says he was promised he could make £32 million British pounds when he met the con men online four years ago.

He says he was offered an investment opportunity to recover lost funds from the United Kingdom and set up various investments in Australia.

He also paid for what the fraudsters said were a series of fees and taxes required to complete the deal which they claimed would result in a financial windfall.

The scammers provided him with a credit card and set up a bogus account where he could withdraw small amounts of money from his $2 million investment.

The scam involved washing expired bank notes that had been coated in a white substance with chemicals to turn them back into useable currency.

Bryan says the scam escalated after meeting with the fraudsters in Kuala Lumpur and Dubai, where they demonstrated with expired bank notes the process.

He says a case containing a safe full of dyed money could be converted if he invested $US80,000 to buy the “special” chemicals needed.

The fraud usually involves notes that have been dyed black and the common chemicals used in the process can usually be purchased at a small price.

Bryan says he felt "gutted" when he realised he had been conned after being contacted by WA Police and Consumer Protection.

"Embarrassed"

Bryan says he has lost $2 million and is $1 million in debt and feels stupid about getting conned.

"Very silly, very embarrassed but as I said you know you are going to get people that are going to confront you and say you are a silly bastard, but if you don't stand up and talk about it to people the word is not going to get out there and others are going to get caught in a similar situation," he said.

Bryan says the scam has cost him everything, just as he was about to retire.

"Very big impact; I can't afford it. Just got caught up in something that definitely wasn't expected," he said.

"I don't believe that I'm the only one that's being conned into this sort of thing, might be a higher amount, but I reckon there's others out there that are very similar.

"These people are very, very clever and very, very good at what they do."

Detective Senior Sergeant Dom Blackshaw of the Major Fraud Squad says the ‘money wash’ fraud is a clever deception that has claimed many victims in the past.

“The criminals wash a small amount of real money that has been dyed and make their victims believe that the remainder of the coated money in the case is also real, when in fact it is mostly only worthless paper,” he said.

“The offenders then demand a large amount of money to buy the chemicals to ‘wash’ the remainder of the fake money and the fraud then escalates from there.

“This particular fraud was supported by sophisticated fake websites replicating legitimate investment banking companies and a bogus account gave the victim the impression he had control of his funds when he did not."